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Posted by
Robert H Shellman
on 2007-10-15

PUBLIC:

I am the CEO of a rapidly growing company in the transportation supply chain BPO space. Our transportation freight under management will exceed $600 million this year and net revenues grow by 30% annually.

Four and half years ago we launched the company with a $20M funding from the VC community. All CEO's are often very lonely in negotiating/deciding a deal structure and selecting the lead and follow-on investors. I would recommend minimizing the number of investors and the size of the Board. It can be very difficult working with a large number of diverse personalities as well as wasting precious time trying to gain alignment among the various Board members.

We were lucky to have several lead term sheets and many interested follow-on investors. You need to be very careful when selecting a lead as this will drive the rest of the process for good or bad. We were fortunate enough to have selected Trident Capital as the lead investor and have been exceptionally pleased with both the initial closing process and the continual support in all categories. They were efficient on the due diligence and provided significant insight for deal structure. Most important they were flexible in accommodating deal modifications that we believed were important. Trident has continued to facilitate/support the company as we invest for growth and international expansions. The Trident partner on our transaction was Venetia Kontogouris.